The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 30, July 22, 2001, Article 11
TWO-TAILED QUARTER AUTHENTICATED
Speaking of errors, Coin World reported this week that
a two-tailed U.S. quarter has been authenticated as
genuine. Everything I've ever read about errors said this
was an impossibility, and just last week, in an emailed
response to a visitor to my web site, I stated flatly that any
such piece must be a manufactured fantasy, not a product
of the U.S. Mint.
On the COINS mailing list Tom DeLorey wrote: "The coin
has indeed been authenticated. The hub characteristics are
reportedly those of the earliest clad quarters, which places
it in the 1965-1974 ballpark.
During the so-called coin shortage of the mid-1960's, the
Mint pulled a lot of old coining equipment out of mothballs to
increase production. They even pulled an 1873 coin press out
of a museum to use. It is possible that some of this equipment
did not have standard modern die holders, and that it would
have been possible to place two obverse or two reverse dies
in one press.
.
Also, there were a lot of deliberately created errors made in
the San Francisco Assay Office in the 1970-1976 period,
that were snuck out of the Mint in the oil pans of fork lift
trucks. See Appendix B of the 7th Edition of the Judd pattern
catalog for some of these deliberate errors. Another one was
a 1970-S Proof quarter struck on a 1900 Barber quarter. I
am not aware that any two-tailed coins were made by the
same person who made the other errors, but it does seem
plausible that it could have been."
In a ripped-from-the-headlines E-Sylum exclusive, David
Lange of Numismatic Guaranty Corp, which certified the
coin, writes: "When NGC's mint error specialist, Dave
Camire, showed me this coin raw, I just glanced at it and
made a joke about it being another of the many magician's
pieces and other novelty coins we receive so frequently. He
insisted I take a closer look, and that's when I realized the
damned thing looked real. Close inspection revealed no sign
of a seam, and both the coin's weight and ring were on the
money. Dave and I agreed that it is a genuine mint product.
Both reverse dies were taken from the first clad hub that was
used as late as 1974, but there are subtle indications that the
coin was made early in the clad series. The extent and manner
of die erosion is characteristic of quarters dated 1965-66 and
seen only rarely on later dates.
Dave Camire asked me if this could have been made at the
San Francisco Mint, since the other coins in the collection
that were identifiable by mint were all SF pieces. SF ceased
coining at the end of March 1955. Due to the nationwide coin
shortage of the early-mid 1960s, it was later reactivated. SF
started producing only planchets at first, shipping these to the
Denver Mint beginning in September of 1964. SF began
striking dimes and quarters about a year later. It's likely that
both silver and clad pieces were made there simultaneously for
a short time.
Normally, the die shanks were machined in such a way that
they could not be mounted in the wrong position or paired to
make a two-headed or two-tailed coin. My speculation is
that the urgency of the coin shortage prompted some short
cutting, among which was a neglect to build proper safeguards
into the die shanks. So, while this dual-reverse quarter was
evidently possible from a technical standpoint, I believe that
the pairing of two, well-used reverse dies may have been
done intentionally to create an oddity. Had the pairing
occurred by accident and resulted in mass production, there
would almost certainly more examples already known to the
hobby."